


Eternity, Light and Dark

by Tlern467



Category: final fantasy 14 - Fandom
Genre: F/F, Post Stormblood and Shadowbringers spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-26 16:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20745485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tlern467/pseuds/Tlern467
Summary: The Warrior of Light has just helped Ryne restore some semblance of order to the Empty by confronting the god like being Eden, but in so doing has been caught up in some stray bits of the Lifestream and the weirdness therein.





	Eternity, Light and Dark

Eternity, Light and Dark 

Eden’s core hummed in uneasy stasis-the memories of her past two confrontations with Leviathan and Titan coalescing with Eden into something altogether different. 

Then suddenly there was Light everywhere, scorching in its banal purity. A scream. Was it Ryne’s? Was it her? 

The entire complex trembled like a giant wresting itself from its slumber. 

Eternity. One word, shouted in her mind. Light. Dark. 

“Shirlai!!!” The complex rumbled again, this time so powerfully it knocked Ryne into her. A powerful shuddering. 

More blinding Light, but different. Then her and Ryne were tumbling somewhere away from the others.

Suddenly the ground was coming up to meet them, but it wasn’t the Light scorched Empty, not exactly. It was green and vibrant with swirls of blue.   
“The Lifestream! Hold on!” Ryne said. 

Then they broke the surface, dragging against something that was both liquid like and not.   
Shirlai closed her eyes against the sudden pain of the shift in pressure like tiny needles piercing her skin. 

Then the sensation was gone. She opened her eyes and she was alone in a dimly lit hallway that seemed to stretch for an eternity in either direction.   
Eternity, the voice repeated.   
She was alone-Ryne nowhere in sight. 

“Oh gods no, let her be somewhere in this blasted place!” Alisaie’s voice from somewhere in the darkness.   
She could only move forward in the hazy blackness, past formless paintings that shifted before one’s eyes. 

“My friend, my enemy,” Zenos said in his gravelly silken smooth voice, also formless in the dark.   
“Please be alright. She has to be alright,” Alisaie’s voice again   
“Oh they’re gods in a fashion. Formed by prayer, conviction and aether. The eldest and most powerful-of Primals,” Emet Selch’s reed like voice.   
Had all her struggles for the people of Eorzea been for a lie? All the confrontations against the Ascians, the beast tribes and their gods-only for Hydaelyn who gave Minfillia, Ryne and her Her gift-to be just another Primal. Did that mean that as long as both exist the Star can never be whole?   
That couldn’t be the whole truth. After all, Hydaelyn gave Minfillia the power she needed to save the First then from Light. From the Ascians’ plans to ignite the Eighth Umbral Calamity.   
There was something else.   
“Remember when that ghost saw me. He’s the only person besides you who could. Not even the Ascian could. I think he saw something special in you hero. You did it. We did it. We did the impossible.”   
In the distance, dimly lit was Rae Rae-the long departed Warrior of Darkness who became a Sin Eater and it was shirlai’s job to put to peace. She gave Shirlai a long, sad smile and mouthed the words Thank you before dissolving into aether before Shirlai’s eyes.   
“Oh please let her wake up! I couldn’t bear it-not again. It isn’t fair.”   
Eternity.   
Was it Eden who was saying that?   
She emerged in a broken landscape of platforms and green with others like her walking together in stride in the green mist. They were like her but different, some with scars, others wearing Job crystals she had never been. But all waiting on her.   
She could only press forward.   
When she did she saw visions to her side. Amaurot the day the Source fell like Emet Selch said, then her fateful battle with Garuda, Titan, Ifrit and then Lahabrea wearing Thancread’s stolen skin. Ultima Weapon towering over her and her companions in a smoking heap of ruin and flame. Papalymo looking resigned to his fate as he bid the Scions one last goodbye. Shirlai holding the dying Haurchefant as he breathed his last. Tesleen transforming into a Sin Eater while she could only watch, helpless.  
So much death and loss.   
“Please, she can’t be gone. I won’t accept it! She has to know how important she is. She’s the Warrior of Light and-“ 

Then she stepped out to a recreation of the Crystal Exarch’s private room. But this was different. Meteors and flames pelted down from the sky in the windows overhead. Screams. She could smell the sulfur of a world in ruin.   
Biggs stumbled into the room and walked right through her. He was carrying the still form of Wedge in his arms.   
Graha Tia of that time looked up from his work and then to the still form of Wedge. The two living men just looked at each other in silence and then Biggs slumped to his knees, still cradling Wedge in his arms.   
The scene melted away to the otherworldly plane where she had received Her gift so many times before.   
“My child,” Hydaelyn said.”Eden has brought you to the edge of Eternity. I see so much confusion and fear. Are you really so afraid of me even knowing what I am?”   
“How can I not?” Shirlai asked wordlessly. “Won’t you suck the land dry? Or me?”   
“Perhaps. But it depends,” she said.”I was summoned into this plane to balance the insatiable Hunger that is Zodiark. I claimed you yes, but only so that you could be empowered to bring freedom to those others to live. You are special child-surely you must sense that from all those long dormant memories. It was you and others like you long ago who wished me into existence that I might protect this Star and the fragile new life of it and it’s copies.”   
“Why does the First not have Primals?”   
“Oh but it does child-just in different forms. I have no desire to manifest myself beyond what I must and endanger the balance of life. The same is true of the First’s Bismarck-a being kept in place by the gentle ness of the Fey to become one itself. Had your other self or those with you wished it I could have become a vengeful god like Zodiark from the twisted mind of the desperate. But you wished for something different, and that wish made me as I am and have been.”   
“So what now?”   
“That is up to you Child,” Hydaelyn said. “Eden brought you here. You can choose to rest here for the rest of eternity or go to those who need you. Both of which are valid and I hold no judgement if you choose either. You have been through so much over the aeons my child-you and your reflections.”   
“Those who need me?”  
“You heard the young woman calling out to you in the Lifestream did you not? You have a bond that is not easily undone not even over the eons. And you heard the twisted man Zenos. Even now he waits for your return-I cannot guarantee what will happen if you do not. It is hard to say. He may burn the whole world down to appease his hunger for destruction. Or he may set the destruction upon himself. It is difficult to say for certain.”   
“My will is my own?”   
“It has ever been child. I do not seek to temper my children-only to give them the strength to match the courage in their hearts to protect this Star.”   
“Then I would go to Alisaie.”   
“So you shall.” 

More blinding Light, then green, then she felt herself and her summary echoes being pulled upward through a vortex of life and sensation.   
Then she opened her eyes.   
Alisaie was over her, tears in her eyes.   
“Can it?! Oh you’re awake-you’re back! I could kiss you right now. You know what-“   
In that moment their lips met and Shirlai tasted her tears, felt Alisaie’s love and hope-for her. And she felt the love swell right back. The voices around her were silent and dull and even She was silent and at peace.   
They both sobbed in relief and held each other close. Together. Here, she was where she belonged. On this Star, where so many who just wanted the opportunity to live another day. With the woman who loved her.


End file.
